Bacterial Culture
Microbiological cultures can be grown in petri dishes of differing sizes that have a thin layer of agar-based growth medium. Once the growth medium in the petri dish is inoculated with the desired bacteria, the plates are incubated at the best temperature for the growing of the selected bacteria (for example, usually at 37 degrees Celsius for cultures from humans or animals, or lower for environmental cultures).
Another method of bacterial culture is liquid culture, in which the desired bacteria are suspended in liquid broth, a nutrient medium. These are ideal for preparation of an antimicrobial assay. The experimenter would inoculate liquid broth with bacteria and let it grow overnight (they may use a shaker for uniform growth). Then they would take aliquots of the sample to test for the antimicrobial activity of a specific drug or protein (antimicrobial peptides).
As an alternative, the microbiologist may decide to use static liquid cultures. These cultures are not shaken and they provide the microbes with an oxygen gradient.
The main ones being:
| Collection Acronym | Name | Location |
|---|---|---|
| ATCC | American Type Culture Collection | Manassas, Virginia |
| NCTC | National Collection of Type Cultures | Health Protection Agency, United Kingdom |
| BCCM | Belgium Coordinated Collection of Microorganism | Ghent, Belgium |
| CIP | Collection d'Institut Pasteur | Paris, France |
| DSMZ | Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen | Braunschweig, Germany |
| JCM | Japan Collection of Microorganisms | Saitama, Japan |
| NCCB | Netherlands Culture Collection of Bacteria | Utrecht, Netherlands |
| NCIMB | National Collection of industrial, Marine and food bacteria | Aberdeen, Scotland |
| STCC | Spanish type culture collection, Valencia University | Valencia, Spain |
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